Stripes(1981)
Columbia Pictures Jun 26, 1981
Two friends who are dissatisfied with their jobs decide to join the Army for a bit of fun.
Release Details
Original Release | Jun 26, 1981 | Wide
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$6,130,197
$85,297,000
$85,297,000
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Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Stereo,Dolby Atmos,Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English,Russian,Polish
Summaries
Plot Summary
- John Winger (Bill Murray) is a taxi cab driver in Louisville, Kentucky, and he experiences the worst day of his life. John tangles with a customer who won't pay the fare, and an annoying, highly-demanding woman (Fran Ryan) who has several very heavy suitcases and wants to be driven to the airport. When she tells John that he's a terrible cabbie, he abandons her and the cab on the George Rogers Clark Bridge. Returning to his apartment, John sees his Mustang being repossessed, and finds that his girlfriend, Anita (Roberta Leighton), is leaving him because he lacks motivation. He also ends up dropping and ruining the pizza that he'd brought home.Feeling that his life hasn't gone anywhere, John decides that he needs a new direction. At that moment, a recruiting ad for the U.S. Army plays on the TV, and John decides that that's just what he needs to get in shape (and meet women).John's best friend is Russell Ziskey (Harold Ramis), whose life is not much better than John's. Russell teaches English-as-a-second-language to immigrants, and he's bored with his job. After teaching his class how to sing "Da-Do-Ron-Ron," Russell goes to John's apartment. John tells Russell that Anita left him, and that he's thinking about joining the Army to take a new direction in life. Russell tells John that he's crazy, and he challenges John to do five full push-ups. John does, but he's exhausted afterwards. John and Russell drive to an Army recruitment office together, and sign up.A few days later, they arrive at Fort Arnold, and meet their drill instructor, Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates). The recruits include John, Russell, Dewey "Ox" Oxberger (John Candy), Francis "Psycho" Soyer (Conrad Dunn), Elmo Blum (Judge Reinhold), Howard J. "Cruiser" Turkstra (John Diehl), Hector (Antone Pagan), and Leon (Glenn-Michael Jones), along with a number of other new recruits. When Hulka first addresses John, Russell, and all the other recruits in the building, John cracks a joke that he thinks Hulka can't hear. Hulka, who did hear it, makes an example out of John by having Corporal Briggs (Samuel Briggs) watch John do 50 push-ups outside the building.The recruits later have their heads shaved, and they're given their clothing and taken to their barracks. Ox, who liked his hair the way it was, is stunned that his hair is so short now. That night, in the barracks, each man introduces himself, and tells the platoon why he chose to join the Army. Ox says that he wants to lose weight and gain the respect of his fellow trainees, and women in general. Ox says that he wants to be a lean, mean fighting machine. John is the last to speak, and he tries to kiss up to Hulka as their leader. Hulka is not impressed, and he orders the unit to get some sleep.The next morning, the platoon is rousted out of bed at 5:00am for a five mile hike. When John suggests that they be allowed to get more sleep, Hulka changes it to a 10-mile hike. John suddenly finds himself out of favor with the other recruits, who are angry at John for that. In their first march out together, John and Russell rally everyone by getting them to sing "Do Wah Diddy" as a cadence.John stands out as a misfit throughout basic training, with Hulka frequently ordering him to do push-ups for any infractions. Hulka continues to ride John until one night, when Hulka addresses everyone in the barracks, saying that he knows that a few of the men have been slipping off the base at night, without permission to. John makes like he'll step forward with Russell, but he tricks Russell into stepping forward, and Hulka gives Russell 24 hours of scrubbing garbage cans. Hulka orders the rest of the platoon to spend two weekends on KP duty (kitchen patrol duty). When Hulka asks John what he thinks of their punishment, John says it sucks. Hulka orders John to a private conference in the latrine.In the latrine, Hulka tells John that he's a punk. Hulka explains that he's been in the Army for 28 years, and he's seen men like John come and go. Hulka says that John doesn't know a thing about soldiering. Hulka explains that he's talking about things like discipline and duty and honor and courage. John sarcastically tells him that those words mean so much to a man who scrubs garbage cans. And then more sternly, John, who is fed up with how Hulka has been riding him, tells Hulka that if he doesn't want him in the Army, then kick him out, but get off his back.Hulka surmises that maybe John wants to take a big swing at him. John admits it, and Hulka dares him to go ahead and give it his best shot. John tells Hulka that he doesn't want to go to the stockade. Taking his hat off, Hulka again dares John to take a swing at him. when Hulka calls him a punk again, John takes a swing at Hulka, but Hulka easily ducks, and slugs John in the stomach, doubling John over, and putting him on his knees. Hulka puts his hat back on, and tells John that he's willing to forget the incident, but he wants John to think hard about it so maybe someday, John will understand what he's talking about. Hulka leaves the latrine.Later that night, John tries to sneak off the base, but John is found by Russell, who angrily tells John that they're both going to finish basic training, because John talked him into joining the Army with him. As Russell tries to strangle John for even coming up with the idea of joining the Army, they're found by Stella Hansen (P. J. Soles) and Louise Cooper (Sean Young), a pair of attractive MPs on the base. Stella and Louise take them back to the barracks without reporting them. As the weeks go by, the recruits continue their training, and prove to be total screw-ups. As basic training progresses, John and Russell become close to Stella and Louise, and they become friends with the rest of their unit.Hulka's self-absorbed commanding officer, Captain Stillman (John Larroquette), who is an incompetent blowhard and a kiss-up, is charged by his commanding officer, Colonel Glass (Lance LeGault), with finding a platoon of new recruits to be sent to Italy on a publicity campaign: they'll participate in the unveiling and testing of a new urban assault vehicle, the EM-50, a Winnebago mobile home outfitted with the state-of-the-art in surveillance and communication technology, and weaponry. Stillman takes the assignment, and Colonel Glass gives Stillman a warning: if Stillman screws up the assignment, then Colonel Glass will have him assigned to a weather station in the Arctic Circle.Stillman goes out looking for the right platoon. Hulka and Sergeant Crocker (Joe Flaherty) are the two drill sergeants who are under Stillman's command. On part of an obstacle course called the confidence course, Hulka has his men climbing a rope to the top of a small tower. When Cruiser can't make it, Hulka tells him that they have women in the Army who can climb a rope better than that. John, feeling that Cruiser has had enough, challenges Hulka to do it himself. Hulka climbs the rope easily, and then invites any recruit to come up and knock him off the platform. Not far away, Stillman is observing mortar practice by some of Sergeant Crocker's men, and he orders one of the men (Timothy Busfield) to fire his round, without any coordinates. The man reluctantly does it. The mortar shell hits the bottom of the tower, causing it to collapse, and spill Hulka to the ground. With Hulka injured, the unit is left leaderless.That night, John, Russell, Ox, and the rest of the platoon go into town, and they end up at a strip joint featuring mud wrestling. John encourages Ox to take on two of the women at once, for a bet of more than $400. Ox is thrown around the ring by his opponents, but he gains an advantage in the 2nd round when he pulls off their bikini tops, but they regain the upper hand on Ox. The place is suddenly raided by the police, and everyone but John and Russell are dragged off by the cops.John and Russell are met by Stella and Louise. Stella and Louise cover for John and Russell, while the rest of the platoon is hauled back to base to face a furious Captain Stillman. Before Stella and Louise return John and Russell to their barracks, they have to inspect the house belonging to the base commander, General Barnicke (Robert J. Wilke). John and Russell join them, over their objections, and they spend the night having sex in General Barnicke's house.Meanwhile, Stillman reprimands Ox and the several others for getting arrested. Stillman threatens to report them to Barnicke, and force them to repeat the entire course of Basic Training if they screw up and don't pass muster at the graduation ceremony that's scheduled for the next day. The situation looks bleak. John and Russell return, and see how disheartened their unit is. Ox explains that Stillman freaked out on them when the MPs brought them back to base, and Cruiser tells John and Russell that Stillman threatened to make them repeat basic training if they screw up at graduation.Russell claims that he can get them all ready for graduation in the few hours they have left. At the motor pool, Russell tries to lead everyone in rifle drills, but they all begin fighting. John steps in and yells for them all to stop, and then he restores their confidence by relating their plight of being wretched Americans to mutts like Old Yeller. The platoon is rallied, and they spend the rest of the night practicing a routine made up by John. After a long night of drilling, they oversleep, and almost miss the graduation ceremony, which they're an hour late for. Without time to even get dressed properly, they run toward the parade grounds, thoroughly out of uniform.At graduation, Hulka's platoon is missing during the first part of the ceremony, and then they're finally seen double-timing onto the parade ground, singing a rhythmic cadence, and then coming to attention. General Barnicke asks where they've been, and John and the platoon enthusiastically shout that they've been training. They perform a highly unconventional, but nevertheless impressive, coordinated rifle drill display led by John. The crowd enthusiastically applauds their performance. Barnicke asks where their drill sergeant is, and Stillman tells Barnicke that Hulka was injured during basic training.Barnicke is impressed that they completed their training on their own. Much to Stillman's shock, Barnicke says that the men in Hulka's unit are exactly the kind of go-getters that he wants working on his EM-50 project in Italy, and he wants them in a plane to Italy before the night's out. Once they're in Ft. Milano, Italy, their mission is to guard the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle, and they're met immediately by Hulka, who has recovered from his injuries. They're shown the EM-50, and they're told that they'll guard it at night.John and Russell take the first watch, and they're bored stiff, but Russell is amazed by the capabilities that he reads about in the EM-50's manual. John suggests that they take the EM-50 out for a spin -- John has the idea of he and Russell meeting up with Stella and Louise, who have been reassigned to West Germany. Later, when Stillman arrives at the hangar with a date, the EM-50 is not there. A shocked Stillman launches a questionable mission, with the rest of the unit, to get the EM-50 back, without his superiors knowing that it was ever gone. Stillman thinks that if they bring in any outside units to help, they'll be the laughingstock of the Army, and he refuses to allow that to happen.As they travel toward West Germany in the rain, Stillman orders them down the wrong road, and they end up driving straight through a Czechoslovakian border checkpoint. They're met a few miles down the road by a Soviet patrol, and they surrender immediately. Moments before they're caught, Hulka, whose advice Stillman had repeatedly refused, jumps out of the back of truck, and hides in the woods, having realized where they are, and what's happening.Hulka later radios a distress call that's picked up by John, Russell, Louise, and Stella in the EM-50 in West Germany. The code that they receive from Hulka indicates that the team is on an undercover mission, and that the U. S. Department of Defense will deny everything, and not acknowledge their capture. John realizes that their unit came looking for them, and that it's their fault that their unit has been captured. With no hope for rescue other than them, John, Russell, Stella, and Louise decide to find and rescue the unit.At a Soviet-operated base just inside the Czechoslovakian border, Hulka observes from the nearby woods while two of his men are beaten up by Soviet officers. Back at the Czech border crossing, Stella and Louise create a distraction while John and Russell take the two guards (Joe Flaherty and Nick Toth) prisoner, and tie them up. They use one of the guard's uniforms and their truck to gain entry into the Soviet base. Though John doesn't have much of a plan for invading the base and finding their buddies, Russell begins activating the weapons systems of the EM-50 -- shielding covers the windows, guns emerge, and they take off, looking for the truck that their unit arrived in.An explosive is fired at the EM-50, but the EM-50 wasn't damaged. The gunner tries to fire another explosive, but Hulka stops him and causes him to fire the explosive toward the nearby border, and the border guard building is destroyed, much to the shock of the two border guards. After a few minutes of searching, Russell, John, Louise, and Stella find the truck near the building where their unit is being held. John and Stella sneak into the building, and find Cruiser sitting in a chair outside a locked room. They knock out the two men who were beating Cruiser, and Cruiser tells them that Stillman and the rest of the men are in the locked room.Stella uses an explosive to blast the door, which doesn't budge. Inside the room, Stillman begins to panic, blaming the unit for the mess that they're in, telling them that the mess is their fault because they can't follow orders. Ox becomes enraged, and charges Stillman, but Stillman moves out of the way, and Ox knocks the door down. Outside the building, Russell uses more of the EM-50's capabilities to fight off Soviet troops. Louise and Russell are forced to retreat temporarily before John, Stella, and the guys emerge. When John, Stella, and the guys see a tank coming, they retreat, finding themselves trapped by more soldiers.Suddenly, the EM-50 backs into the area, and Russell disables the tank by blasting it with a rocket launched from the EM-50. John, Stella, and the unit pile into the EM-50 with Louise and Russell, and they all leave. During their escape, Hulka is able to jump onto the roof of the EM-50 from above. They drive through a makeshift shack at the border checkpoint, and they arrive safely back in West Germany.Later, at an airfield back in the United States, John, Russell, Stella, and Louise all arrive to a hero's welcome. John appears on the cover of Soldier of Fortune, Ox appears on the cover of teen magazine Tiger Beat, and Hulka retires, with honors, to start a restaurant called HulkaBurger. Stella appears on the cover of Penthouse, and Louise appears on the cover of Road Life, with the EM-50. Russell appears on the cover of Guts. John, Russell, Stella, Louise, and Hulka are each awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest U.S. military decoration, after the Medal of Honor. Captain Stillman is assigned to a weather station in the Arctic Circle, near Nome, Alaska, which was what Colonel Glass had promised to do to Stillman if he screwed up the EM-50 mission in Italy.When John sees Hulka waiting on the tarmac, Hulka makes like he's going to shake John's hand, but Hulka salutes him instead. Humored, John salutes him back. Ox, who is now a Sergeant, marches his unit down the tarmac to "Do Wah Diddy" as the movie ends.
Storyline
- At the end of a very bad day, John Winger realizes that his life has gone and is going nowhere, and he's able to convince his best friend Russell Ziskey, whose life isn't much better, to enlist in the Army, although neither is obvious soldier material. In basic training, they are only two of a bunch of misfits that comprise their platoon. However, it is still John that is constantly butting heads with their drill sergeant, Sergeant Hulka. Two of their saving graces are Stella and Louise, two MPs who get them out of one scrape after another. Their entire platoon is in jeopardy of not graduating. But what happens during basic leads to their entire platoon being assigned to an overseas mission in Italy, to test a new urban assault vehicle, the EM-50 project. John and Russell decide to take the EM-50 for an unauthorized test drive to visit Stella and Louise who have been reassigned to West Germany. In the process, the rest of the platoon, Hulka, and Hulka's immediate superior, self-absorbed Captain Stillman, get caught unofficially behind enemy Communist lines in Czechoslovakia. John and Russell, with Stella and Louise's help, will have to show their true mettle as US army soldiers and in the process test the capabilities of the EM-50 to rescue their platoon without the rest of the US army knowing what's going on, and thus without any assistance beyond themselves. — Huggo After losing everything that he holds dear during the same day, rudderless New York City slacker John Winger has an epiphany: since his life is already a mess, why not enlist in the Army? Dreaming of exotic travels, free meals, and girls, John talks his unmotivated best friend, English teacher Russell, into joining the U.S. Army, but surviving the grueling boot camp and the demanding drill sergeant, Sergeant Hulka, is easier said than done. At least, two beautiful MPs, Louise and Stella, seem to like John and Russell. But will John finally grow up before he sparks World War III? — Nick Riganas Thanks to a run of bad luck and go-nowhere jobs, John convinces Russell to join the Army so they can get in shape, likening it to a health spa. Once in boot camp, wiseguy John tangles with his by-the-book Sergeant and becomes the unofficial leader for his platoon, made up of other misfits and assorted losers. After somehow making it through to graduation, they are given a special assignment, but thanks to John's romantic interest in a pretty MPO, the other men wind up behind the Iron Curtain until John, Russell, their dates, and Sgt. Hulka make a daring rescue attempt in explosive style. — Warlock
